Tagged: motivation

Over the years I’ve dealt with probably several hundred people and helped guide them towards their fitness goals. What many people don’t know is that my background is in psychology, and I’m fascinated with how people think.

One aspect of goal setting that many people forget about when it comes to creating a goal is really digging deep into their personality type. We all have different aspects to our personality depending on several factors. These personality traits can either set you up for success in life or take away from it because you’ll always feel like you’re forcing a square peg into a round hole if you don’t.

As an example, three years ago I was offered an office job temporarily during the federal election. I found quickly after a couple of weeks that sitting at a desk all day in an office environment made me want to dig my eyes out of my head with a rusty fork. The work was easy for me, but I much prefer being on my feet, teaching and coaching different situations and people and having a fluid schedule. This is just part of who I am. The temporary job just reinforced it to me.

As an aside, I’ve never understood people who are miserable at their jobs just to take a paycheck home. If you don’t like your situation, just change it – it’s not as hard as you think. But I digress…

So how does this apply to fitness? There’s a few ways you can analyze your personality and make it work for you fitness wise as well. Here’s a couple of key questions to ask yourself when it comes to creating a strategy towards fitness:

Are you a Group Person or an Individual?

What sports did you play as a kid? Were you a hockey or basketball star or did you prefer golf or racquet sports? Most people are either team sports oriented or individual sport oriented. Someone who is team sport oriented likes meshing with and depending on other people to perform their activity. An individual person might be part of a team still, but prefer that their performance relies on their own effort and skill.

This tends to also work in adulthood. Individual sport people usually will prefer the same environment. This might mean you join a running group, golf with a couple of others, play a racquet sport or cycle alone. Team sport people will be more likely to join a league or team for things that require multiple people.

Let’s translate that to the gym. An individual person likely would prefer something like simply lifting weights alone – even at home. They don’t have to have another person relying on them to get things done. A team person would likely prefer showing up to a yoga class with a bunch of people they know or doing anything with a bunch of others.

Can you Focus or are you a Multi-Tasker?

Some people can sit down and complete a grueling task that takes all day and enjoy it, checking off a list one thing at a time. Others (like me) prefer constant changes and stimulation and can have several projects on the go at the same time.

The former person will prefer to walk into a gym with a defined plan. Something to follow and check off parts as they go and likely not adjust it. The latter will be more of a type that will adjust a plan on the fly if they have one, or try different types of classes in the same week for variety even if they might not be guiding towards anything specific.

A focused person would set one or two goals in a year and work diligently towards them like a marathon or a large event like a tournament or championship. A multi-tasker might have ten goals and only accomplish five of them and be fine with that.

Your most successful champion athletes are typically the focused ones who can work on one goal for long periods of time and follow a plan – but it’s okay to admit that you aren’t that type of person. If you find that you can’t follow a focused plan for more than a couple of months, admit that to yourself and find a way to tweak things so that you are working on a couple of things at once. Triathletes are excellent multi-taskers (which is probably why I liked it too!).

Do you Want to Show Off or are you Self-Fulfilled?

This is where I might get criticized a bit but hear me out. We all have a certain amount of narcissism within us. Some more than others. When you are digging deep you really need to ask yourself if you’re doing the event to be able to brag to your friends or show off to others, or simply for accomplishing a goal and feeling good about it yourself.

Making an amazing golf shot brings a good feeling to people – but you’re by yourself, as does making an amazing play on a soccer field so people will cheer for you. Ask yourself if you don’t care about a trophy but want to have an amazing sense of accomplishment like a long adventure race or a marathon – or if you want to be carried off the field on the shoulders of your team mates or have your picture in a magazine so you can display it all over social media.

Again, how does this translate to the gym? Maybe someone who wants to show their skills would be a great group fitness instructor. Or join a Crossfit gym where they can write their accomplishments on a board and have people cheering them on at competitions. Self-fulfilled people might not even need a gym and be happy just working out at home.

Ask Yourself These Questions

This process will go a long way towards making sure that you are doing something that you will continue with in the fitness world. As we all know, the key to success is one main thing – consistency. Creating an environment where you will feel your best and keep going constantly will bring you the greatest success with your goals.

Be honest with yourself as well. It is easy to program things based on what we think others might think of us. Get over it. Focus on what you enjoy and really stay true to yourself – and this can apply to many areas of life, not just fitness.

If you have any questions or enjoyed this please like, share and retweet away! I appreciate any and all feedback and hope that you continue in the best way towards your fitness journey.

Recently because I’m a football fan I’ve been reading about recovery of the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. His name is Andrew Luck and he’s a professional athlete who was the next up and coming superstar in the league.

That is, until he badly tore the labrum in his shoulder and had to have surgery. The whole thing was mismanaged by his medical staff and it’s a long story, but the point of the whole thing is this: He did not take a snap last football season and has been out of football for over a year due to rehab.

This is a professional athlete with access to daily physio, the best surgeons in the game and things like stem cell treatments, and he still has not thrown a football in over a year. A year. This is a guy who throws a football for a living and he’s not doing it to let his injury recover for a YEAR.

I’ll ask you a simple question: if he’s taking that long to recover with access to all of those resources, what makes you think that you can recover from an injury any faster?

Over the years I’ve dealt with hundreds of injuries. One thing that I really try to get across to my clients is that if you are hurt, you need to give your body time to heal and recover from whatever it is. This takes TIME. Usually a period of weeks if not months. For some reason my Type A people seem to think that if they just baby a problem for a couple of weeks and then go right back into doing whatever they were doing before they will be fine.

Or even worse, they do physio but keep on doing the same activity that caused the injury in the first place and expect to recover. I had an example of that just last week and when I pointed it out to my client that not stopping the activity meant it would just get worse again she was for some reason completely dumbfounded.

Does this make sense?

The general guidelines for minor injuries is 4-6 weeks. More severe ones are 6-12 weeks. Surgery is anywhere from 3-6 months at LEAST depending on the issue.

My main point is this: we need to exercise patience as a society when it comes to our bodies.

Whether it comes to recovering from an injury, things like weight loss or achieving a goal like running a marathon, you need to exercise patience to succeed.

Are you acting smart, or making things worse by rushing the process?

Setting a goal for recovery is just like any other goal – there is a timeline and a process involved. Sometimes it means not moving anything for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is moving just a little bit as much as you can as frequently as you can to help the healing process. It can be frustrating and feel like it’s taking forever. But you have a long time to achieve whatever it is you’re trying to do.

If you want to be active and healthy for a lifetime, then taking six months to recover from an injury might represent less than 1% of your athletic or active life over a span of fifty years. You’re not missing anything by taking that time to make sure that whatever happened doesn’t happen again.

Be patient now, be consistent and give it time and you will succeed in your recovery. Rush back into activity and have a setback or make the situation worse and suddenly a six-week process becomes six months.

If an NFL player can not touch a football for a year, you can wait three months to rehab from surgery. Don’t think that your body or recovery process is any different. Patience and consistency wil get you results every time.

If you liked this article, feel free to share it on social media, contact me via Facebook or LinkedIn or email me directly with any inquires.

I have clients who constantly talk to me about nutrition. I’m not an expert (even though my first certification ever 17 years ago was in nutrition) and usually will refer out if someone is looking for specific advice. Meal plans can be found readily online (for free, don’t know why people pay money for them), but people simply don’t stick to them.

However, there are some universal nutrition items that come up in everyone I deal with who is trying to lose weight or change their body composition. These are some harsh truths, but I hope they resonate with you. It’s nothing complicated. As with exercise, people obsess about the last 10% when they should be focused on the first 90 for real results. These are simple fixes and don’t take a lot of effort to adjust, but the results in a period of time can be staggering.

Here’s a quick list of 5 nutrition basics that you’re probably NOT doing:

You DON’T eat vegetables, or enough of them.

Most of us default to vegetables being a second thought when it comes to what goes on our plate. It’s a side at a restaurant that isn’t even considered beyond what kind of topping you’ll get on your baked potato. We will also eat fruit instead of vegetables and consider that just fine because it’s the same thing. Well, it’s not.

Fructose is more easily converted into fat – if you’re overeating, which most of you are. If you’re eating within your caloric energy requirements then it gets converted into blood sugar like any other carb and you use it for energy. However, if you want to remove that small risk (and greatly reduce your calories to boot) try changing out your banana for some carrot sticks or celery. 1 large banana is 140 calories and a cup of carrot sticks is 50.

You don’t get rid of starchy carbs when you can.

“Hey, instead of the pasta or mashed potato side can you just double my vegetables or give me some rice?” said nobody in any restaurant EVER. They will do it, by the way all you have to do is ask. This falls under the heading of portion control. One small serving of (1 cup) ravioli can be 200 calories and a cup of broccoli is 30. In a restaurant where you can actually control what they make and that you are PAYING FOR is where most people don’t limit the choices they should.

When was the last time a restaurant gave you a portion that was 1 cup? Again, never. This leads to overeating. If you now look at menu items in a typical restaurant you will see how loaded they are in calories (thank God for that) and that you can eat literally half and be just fine.

You don’t limit your added sugar intake.

One of my clients’ husbands literally took one step and started drinking his coffee black instead of double double at Tim’s. He dropped 8 pounds in two months DOING NOTHING ELSE. Traps like specialty coffees at Starbucks or protein smoothies which are touted as good for you are the worst culprits. I can’t count the amount of women who would do a group exercise class and then head down to the front desk for a “healthy” smoothie loaded with frozen yoghurt, replacing every calorie they just burned plus extra and wondered why they weren’t losing weight.

There is hidden sugar in many things we consume all the time, so adding more into it isn’t a good idea especially since again – more sugar in the blood gets converted to stored fat FIRST. Believe it or not, if you eliminate it for a couple of weeks you may go through withdrawal. That’s how prevalent it is in many things.

You don’t track your calories. Honestly.

Fitbits and other wearable devices have made exercise accountability easy and mindless. If only there was something you could do to track your calories. Oh wait, there is! There’s probably about 100 apps you can load onto your phone, and god forbid you have to type something into a database and press a couple of buttons.

Many of my clients complain it’s too hard and I give them my patented withering look. It takes five minutes a day. Literally. Delay the Netflix queue and input it and BE HONEST. If you had a handful of M+M’s at work, that goes in there. If you had sugar in your coffee or a glass of wine, it goes in there. You don’t stop recording on the weekend because “you were bad” and feel guilty. This is called self control and consistency, both of which are exactly what you need to lose weight.

You indulge “once in a while”.

Be honest with yourself. If you were, you would realize that the reason your weight isn’t under control is because you reward yourself and indulge way too often. Once a week MIGHT be fine for some people, for many it isn’t if you have a serious goal and a commitment. If you’re exercising intensely several times a week (which again, most of you aren’t – be honest) then you can get away with more.

That means ONE drink at Starbucks, not 3-4 times a week. That means ONE decadent dessert a week, not a couple of cookies every night. It means getting in touch with the reasons you’re eating the stuff, not just eliminating it. All those brownies, chocolate, sodas, restaurant food and French fries add up over time. And it takes time to eliminate them. Yes it tastes good. And yes, it helps when you’re stressed or feel like you need a hit to calm you down or feel better. But if it’s contrary to your goals then just STOP. Take a good look at your habits and figure out what patterns you have or what your relationship with food is and adjust it accordingly. Easier said than done I know, but it is the right step to take if you want to get your weight and health under control.

There you have it.

Did any of these resonate with you? Maybe more than one of them? Well, the best time to start a new habit is today. Don’t worry about days past and failed diets and bad things you have done previously. Today you can start a new habit. Start with the five items here and work on them and I can guarantee that you’ll be in a better place months from now. Get CONSISTENT.

As always, if you enjoyed this feel free to share and like it, or subscribe to my Facebook page. Comments are also always welcome.

Recently I took a course in NeuroKinetic Therapy, which was a great weekend of learning. Not only did I get to experience a great new modality to help my clients but I found out some things about myself.

As practitioners we often overlook little flaws in what we do because we think we know everything. My strength levels are good, my mobility is excellent and I have a great amount of power and endurance. A funny thing happened though.

When I got my deep abdominal layer tested it was a MASSIVE fail in one area. Having the humility to analyze that made me realize that I had to go back to the drawing board and rebuild what I had been working on for my own workouts. And this meant going right back to some very basic exercises that I had been overlooking for years.

One of my roles as a coach is to remind people of basic fundamentals, and I spend a lot of my time during sessions doing just that. Reminding people to slow down, focus on form, even adjusting loads constantly to create the ability to control muscles and joints. More often than not my athletes have overlooked that if they can’t do A properly, then they have no business doing B.

So here’s the question I ask people – are you good enough at the simple fundamentals before you jump into more advanced things when it comes to your training?

I’ll give an example of my runners. So many runners are notorious for simply strapping on their shoes and going out for runs without having strong lower limbs or backs and then wonder why they are constantly getting hurt. My runners get trained like powerlifters in the gym because their bodies HAVE to be able to take a large amount of load constantly. This means they need to be able to have strong backs and hips which means great form during heavy lifting. Then, they need to be able to run short distance consistently day after day with good form and recovery principles in place before expanding their distance and speed. This takes months for many of them, not days or weeks.

If your goal is to deadlift heavy weight, can you even get into lifting position (ie a fairly deep squat) without compromising your spine first? Have you worked on basic position fundamentals enough to then be able to load the bar and try some controlled repetitions?Practice this first and make sure you have it down.

If your goal is to play a sport, can you do the basics like push hard anaerobically for 45 seconds without getting completely winded repeatedly and losing form during your movement? No? Maybe you need to focus on just doing hard repeats before getting back on the ice or track.

Or, if your goal is simply to get into a good exercise habit, can you perform some basic bodyweight movements – at home – for 10 minutes every other day and establish a habit before you even think about joining a gym? This can also take weeks for some people. And before you say an excuse, remember that it’s only 10 minutes. Drop one episode of Netflix or don’t hit the snooze button.

If you have tried to change things in the past and keep going back, sometimes it takes a complete step back to the very start and beginning there again before you move forward. for many this requires some humility, but if it will get you to your long term goal faster and without hurting yourself then it is worth the investment. Nothing in life comes without some hard work over time, and this is usually months, not days or weeks.

So my lesson today is to take a look at your program and maybe take a step back if you’re not seeing progress or you have gotten out of a good habit. Break down what you’re really trying to accomplish and begin with the simplest parts. Once you have mastered that, then you have the right to move onto more difficult parts.

I’m already applying this to my own exercise practice and seeing improvement even after two weeks. You can easily do the same.

By the way, this doesn’t have to apply to exercise only. Whether it be work goals, life goals or even family goals starting with simple fundamentals is always the best course of action.

If you need help figuring out where to get started, I’m happy to help. Reach our at strengthrehabottawa@gmail.com, on Facebook or on Twitter or Instagram @strengthottawa. I look forward to the opportunity to help you move forward.